Month: September 2016

I have friends in Brighton, some lovely people. A few very committed Labour councillors, who even after my decimation of the Labour Party record in the last few years are my friends, because they are actually pretty hardworking and want to make the world better. When I say Labour are failing, they say yes, we are and how do we make it better.

It became distressing talking to them a while ago. Brighton and Hove CLP is the site of serious problems, which am sure Dispatches and Panorama covered well. The MP is Peter Kyle, the only Labour MP in a sea of blue that goes on for miles inland. For six years I have discussed equality being rolled back for working class mothers, talked about nothing except the way the family courts crisis, the loss of legal aid, and benefit cuts have returned women to a dangerous 19th century state. The Labour left, and Corbyns supporters abused me and defamed me for doing so because they wanted a pretend anti-cuts movemnt that didn’t discuss austerity and what it was doing. Peter Kyle is the only MP I have heard in 6 years discuss that situation, the first MP to make plain the seriousness of the courts abusing women for being abused and taking their kids.

Greg Hadfield is a misogynist bully, I have heard tale after tale of his upsetting and misogynist behaviour. He has decided that Brighton CLP don’t need an MP who speaks for the most vulnerable women in society. He has decided that the Labour Party is his new hobby and the country can face Tory rule for decades cos it doesn’t touch him. I didn’t realise it was Greg Hadfield on Panorama, and I mocked the moron who said the Battle for the Soul of the Labour Party was going to be fought on the streets of Brighton and Hove. Our faux revolutionary was very mockable. He searches for himself on twitter, narcissism or masochism I don’t know, but decided to showboat and call me out for calling him a knob. I hadn’t realised until that point who he was.

If this is a battle for the soul of the Labour Party, you have to decide. If the Labour Party’s soul is about an ex Senior Telegraph executive, ex Mail Journalist, Millionaire, bullying female councillors and activists, and trying to oust the only Labour MP who dared stand up for working class mothers, the only Labour MP in that area, then the Labour Party’s soul is that of a spoiled right wing journalist. A member of the elite shouting Corbyn and reciting institutional mythology contained only in the cesspit of the Labour left. A man using his semi retirement from the papers who abuse working class women, to bully women, use union power needed for social workers, nurses and care workers, to sacrifice Britain’s democracy for his own ego. Socialist revolution this is not. Corbyn’s movement is for elite lefties in the middle of mid life crises and spoiled rich kids who will never have to suffer the consequences of their actions.

When Paul Mason says whose side are you on, I look at the likes of Greg Hadfield, and the price that the poorest people in the country will pay for his ego, and I know whose side am on. I think Paul needs to ask himself whose side he is on. Am on the side of democracy. Am on the side of MPs who work for their constituents, am on the side of female councillors who balance work with kids with serving their local area while being bullied by a millionaire ex Mail, ex Telegraph bigwig. Am on the side of MPs with competing mandates having the right to stand up to party leaders when they are wrong. Am on teh side of a system of government where parliamentary leader is not a permanent position and can’t be maintained by abusing female MPs until they have to live in a safe house. Am on the side of parliamentary authority not coming from mobs summoned to parliament Green, and being given carte blanche to abuse anyone they choose by the Leader of the Labour Party and the Shadow Chancellor. Am not on the side of pisshead millionaire bullies, who use austerity borne by women, union power stolen from women, so they can abuse women and dickswing in a glorious faux revolution that millions of the poorest people in the country will pay for. A bully who made his fortune abusing the poorest peple in the country. I wonder if he gave back his fat right wing press pension before he decided the country needed his version of socialism? I bet he fucking didn’t.

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Paul, am sorry to do this but it’s beyond the pale now. You know I have always admired you. You have a stunning body of work, and I don’t know what is going on but I should clarify a few things for you. Your identity as a ‘Labour’ lefty appears to be clouding your judgement, it has definitely removed your ability to reflect on the power dynamics you are part of , it is leading you to behave appallingly.

You know how hard austerity has been, especially for women. What you don’t also know, because your identity is wrapped in a toxic version of leftism that working class women killed stone dead, is what that austerity was doing. It stripped back at capacities to care from our benefits system, our social care system and most importantly our child protection system. None of these changes were sustainable, and now the inevitable crisis the attempt created will be addressed by a Tory government. The actions of you and your friends over the last few months mean my daughter will not know anything but Conservative government until she is well into adulthood. The same friends who spent 6 years attacking people who understood there was political consensus on these cuts, and who knew that these cuts were not deliverable.

You don;t know what child protection does, you don’t know the principles of care economics, you don’t actually understand the behaviour of cash transfer systems or the transformation that was just attempted. You don’t know why it’s failing. But it’s not interesting to you, it has served a purpose.

You remember 1983, when the battle reenactment you are engaged in actually happened, do you know what else happened? The war on welfare claimants started in earnest. Thatcher was unopposed because toytown lefties decided they wanted the Labour Party and the behaviour of that culture meant that Labour were unelectable for a long long time. You lament the loss of traditional paternalism in the working class. That paternalism was black eyes, and abuse of women and children, and in the period where deindustrialisation happened new professions emerged. Knowledge bases. Professionals who understood inequality, the relationship of inequality and abuse, ill health, education. They were women. You know of these services because you are currently using union power stolen from those women to play out your mid life crisis. UNISON said some cuts were ok and purged members who challenged Labour, and itturns out we never had trade unions because of you and your friends. They were yours. The only voice those services had and your friends stole it. Paid for with our money but belonging to you and anyone who chose the word left at an elite university. We need to discuss direct democracy and activism, because your knowledge is lacking. This country has an astonishing history of successful activism and social movements. Don’t get me wrong trustafarian leftism has always been a dead end but we have mental health services, child protection, domestic violence services, and many other things because of successful activism. Those services were supposed to have trade unions, but they belong to you and your elite clique of white male friends who have never even used these institutions, never mind worked in them.

We desperately need direct democracy in this country. We rely on it. We need to clarify what a grassroots movement is. Identify the location of control. If it is the front bench of the House of Commons and the only aim is to remove a major political party leader from democratic reach, its not grassroots. If the people in the inner sanctum are all Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester, Eton, its not grassroots. If they all need offshore tax arrangements for their serious fortunes, its not grassroots. Its astroturf. This version of Labour activism is the same elite bullies who abused women, kids, social care users, so they could have a pretend anti-cuts movement which didn’t actually discuss austerity outside your lefty fantasy.

You have told the sheep following you that it is acceptable to abuse who they choose because we aren’t the people who pay for your vanity, we are torturers and wr mongers. Apparently its fine to threaten and target women and kids for the cause because we started the Iraq War. The women who suffered the austerity you exploit can be harassed, threatened, bullied, because that’s your way.

We need a political party but you have decided we can have unopposed Tories for years, so you can play out your mid life crisis. peddle conspiracy theories and play middle aged lefty. Take a look around you Paul. The white, wealthy boys around you with plums in their mouths, reciting bullshit leftism and ending each sentence with ‘Yah’ are all from Oxford, Cambridge, and most of them wont be touched by the next three decades of Tory rule. You and I both know who they are, we can both name them. We can both say which colleges they went to.

You pretend you can’t see the abuse of women your culture depend on, you pretend you can’t see they are using stolen union power, you pretend that you don’t know Peoples Momentum is astroturf and not a grassroots movement, and you pretend because this is your mid life crisis. You pretend you don’t know that working class women had to kill that paternalism stone dead, because it was killing us, because we rose out of industrialisation with more skills and education than ever before and we refused to be subjugated by violence any more. You pretend not to know the austerity fuelling your mid life crisis is paid for by those women’s bruises. You can’t fight reality forever Paul. When your hangover from this is done, our hangover will be years and years of Tory rule. It will be the death of the welfare state. There will be no applause for you Paul. What you are doing to us is outrageous.

Apparently every steel town MP should await deselection. You have decided in your infinite wisdom they need Tory Mps or UKIP. They don’t. You have decided that parliamentary democracy now means you, and your very small group of elite friends, are the only mandate MPs need. MPs balance many mandates, constituents, voters, and at the end of the day Labour grassroots are the grunts who deliver leaflets. You want Labour to fight an election telling voters they no longer matter because you and your very small clique of elite friends say so. Labour are going to be decimated at the next election. They wont come back for a long time if they do. In Scotland that’s fine because they have the SNP, in England that leaves us with the Tories and UKIP.

Arron Banks is watching you manufacture astroturf and at some point it will be the far right on Parliament Green saying they are the only source of democratic mandate MPs need.

I don’t envy you. Directly trying to create a political vacuum in a country in crisis, trying to act out your Podemos fantasies is going to cost you dear. Luckily you are the elite and your BBC pension alone will see you right. The people who pay for this for generations won’t be so lucky. You get to fight a brutal war because you will never feel the bruises and the only thing that matters to you is battles that ended decades ago while we fight a war now without trade unions, a political party and with every attempt at activism derailed by the labour fucking left.. Lucky for some eh?